


Case 972564402.

by drifterlovemail



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Other, elias makes things so difficult as i dont know how to tag any of this, its like....oglias/michael dont get your hopes up, spoilers up through s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24166906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drifterlovemail/pseuds/drifterlovemail
Summary: Statement of Elias Bouchard.  Regarding an incident in the Artifact Room of the Magnus Institute. Statement given 3rd August, 1983. Gertrude Robinson recording.
Relationships: Michael Shelley/Elias Bouchard
Kudos: 23





	Case 972564402.

**Author's Note:**

> i know the script format doesn't work perfectly on ao3 but i didnt realize that til i was trying to post it so. get fucked me i guess

**[INT. MAGNUS INSTITUTE, ARCHIVES, 1983]**   
**[TAPE CLICKS ON.]**

**GERTRUDE**  
Case 972564402. Elias Bouchard. Regarding an incident in the Artifact Room of the Magnus Institute. Statement given 3rd August, 1983. Gertrude Robinson recording.  
  
  
 **ELIAS**  
So I just uh, start, huh?  
  
  
 **[GERTRUDE SIGHS]  
  
**  
 **GERTRUDE**  
That would be the general routine, yes.   
  
  
**ELIAS**  
Okay. Okay. So I'm in storage last Tuesday, and I -- I'd left for Michael's but I realized I'd forgot my card, and -- to _home_ , I mean. I spoke to Michael in the hall just now so I --  
  
  
 **GERTRUDE**  
I am aware of you and Michael's involvement, Elias. Why don't you start with telling me what you broke in the artifact room, and go from there?  
  
 **ELIAS**  
 _(AUDIBLE HESITATION)_ Right. Well I didn't break anything. It's Wright. I'd forgotten my card for the tram when I left for Michael's, and realized I didn't do the cataloging Wright asked me to do either. I think Wright's always looking to fire me, really, ever since he caught me smoking my first week. Just hasn't found an excuse I couldn't sue him for. So I shot Michael a text that I'd be late and got to it. Got me stuck me on the couch for it, on top of everything else.

At the time, I thought Wright expected me to forget. Like I said, always looking for an excuse, even if he has to bait and hook me himself. So he saunters down into the artefact room at two in the fucking morning, while I'm elbow deep in papers listing the details of the fucking haunted piano or whatever it is we have back there. But he's looking at me real strangely, like I'm trespassing. He asks me what I'm doing around here so late and I turn it around and ask him the same. Which is... childish, I know it is. So did he, with the look on his face. But he doesn't answer. Just tells me to get home, and I'm in enough of a hurry and excited enough to end the conversation I just go. 

When I'm half out the door Wright grabs my arm and tells me to let him know if I'm ever going to be working that late, because if he only heard me he would've called the cops. I'd never gotten that close to him. He was really cold. My arm was still freezing for a day after that, like I dipped it in ice water. And he didn't have anything in his eyes. But I didn't give him any shit, believe me. I got out of there.

I've still forgotten my tram card, though. Got so caught up in the dread of cataloging I never grabbed it to begin with. So I wait about ten minutes outside the Institute, ordered takeaway to Michael's, and try to sneak my way back inside without Wright noticing. He'd left by then, so I got my things all well and fine, but I went past his office. Heard him talking to himself. Nothing I could make out enough to start throwing things around but...he sounded angry. Frustrated, I guess. Have you ever been around Wright, just outside the Institute? Grabbed a drink with him?  
  
 **GERTRUDE**  
I don't tend to go to pubs with those I harbor professional relationships with, Elias. Or to their homes.  
  
  
 **ELIAS**  
Gotten mad I've stolen all his attention, have you? Like you don't have _enough_ assistants to cover the void --   
  
  
**GERTRUDE**  
 _Elias.  
  
_  
 **ELIAS**  
\-- But I get your point. You've never even seen him when he wasn't working?  
  
  
 **GERTRUDE**  
I can't say that I have.  
  
  
 **ELIAS**  
I've known people who get weirder off the clock, I guess. Knew a guy who wrapped himself up in midnight theatre after his job in our office. But I don't think Wright...relaxes. I think he's as boring as you, no pubs or friends or pets to speak of. But after he was talking to himself I heard him on the phone anyway, yelling. I wanted to get out of there. I knew Michael was going to be pissed at me as is and that I should catch the next tram out. But I was sort of...stuck there to the door. It was less like peeling a layer back and seeing a new side of my boss as it was biting into an apple and inside of it it's a fucking rock, or made of venomous spikes. The whole Institute seemed to shrink down to just his voice and the space outside the door, even though I couldn't hear him properly. He would just snap, and then the phone would buzz back at him, and then again and again. 

I did get out of there, eventually. Suddenly I felt a massive weight of this...dread, and I left. I heard Wright's door open when I was far enough away and it made me go even quicker.

He's looked at me weirder since then though. It's been weeks and he hasn't spoken to me, but he's looked at me. Have you noticed he'll speak to Michael, or to you, and he won't speak to me right next to you? He'll look over though, every time there's a moment of silence. Like some weird fucking birdwatching, if you got directly in the bird's face. I started trying to annoy him again just to get it to stick. Tripped over him in the hall, closed the door as he was opening it. I started smoking joints on the job and pretending I hadn't been doing anything when he walked in. And don't look at me like that -- it was only the once. But he's always silent, always looking. 

It's stuck with me. Even when I'm at home. You think I want to think about my boss while I'm trying to clean, or cook, or just _be_? I don't. I don't think I'm going to be here much longer if it stays this way.  
  
  
 **GERTRUDE**  
You speak like I'm a Human Resources department.  
  
  
 **ELIAS**  
I speak like you push everyone in this Institute around like it's your own little board game. Keep doing it.  
  
  
 **[CLICK]**  
  
  
 **[CLICK]**  
  
  
 **GERTRUDE**  
Final comments. I wish Elias' assumptions of me were as...dramatic as he frames them, but alas I haven't been able to garner any answers from James Wright or the key to his office. Though I am not above breaking his door, I would rather not do so until the situation and James Wright's place in the Institute passes the point of no return.   
Elias has since taken a leave of absence, and I hear the quality of Michael's work has gone down significantly. I cannot handle the every day upkeep of the Institute on my own, nor do I care to. If the situation carries on as it is both of their work will be passed on to the other assistants. All I know for now is that I will keep a closer eye on James Wright.

  
**[CLICK]**

  
  



End file.
